One team trying to defend its division championship faces another fighting just to make the playoffs when the Anaheim Ducks and the St. Louis Blues meet Wednesday night at the Honda Center.

The Ducks must overtake the first-place San Jose Sharks to claim their fifth consecutive Pacific Division title. The Blues, meanwhile, hold the Western Conference's final wild-card spot while remaining two points behind the third-place Nashville Predators in the Central Division.

Anaheim won three of its last four games with a resurgent Corey Perry, who scored three goals in three games -- including two in a 5-2 win over the Washington Capitals on Sunday night.

Before his three-game surge, Perry failed to score in his previous 10 games and tallied four goals in 36 games from Dec. 15 to March 7.

"It's tough mentally on a player of that caliber when things don't go your way," Ducks coach Randy Carlyle said. "It's up to us as a coaching staff to find ways to motivate him. But he's worked real hard. He's stayed with it and stayed focused."

Anaheim goalie John Gibson will miss his eighth game of the past nine because of lower-body injuries. Gibson played in Friday night's 4-3 loss in St. Louis but was scratched just before the game against Washington and did not skate in Tuesday's practice.

Carlyle said he did not know when Gibson would be available.

"After he played, he just didn't feel right," Carlyle said. "That's really what he told us. It's something a little different this time. We've got to take the necessary course of action now."

With Gibson unavailable, Jonathan Bernier makes his ninth successive start. Bernier won his past three games, including one by shutout, while compiling a 1.62 goals-against average and a .948 save percentage. As a result, the NHL named Bernier its second star for the week that ended Sunday.

The Blues bring a five-game winning streak into the second contest of their five-game road trip. St. Louis began the trip Monday night with a 3-1 victory over the Los Angeles Kings that gave the Blues a five-point lead over Los Angeles in the race for the final playoff spot.

When asked whether the game against the Kings was his team's biggest so far, St. Louis coach Mike Yeo responded succinctly.

"Up until the next one," Yeo told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. "Every game is huge."

Goalie Jake Allen has been pivotal to the Blues' winning streak. Allen earned four of the team's five victories with one shutout, and compiled a 1.33 goals-against average with a .960 save percentage.

With Allen's help, the Blues conceded only eight goals during their past five games and trailed for only 6 minutes, 5 seconds in that span.

Right winger Dimitrij Jaskin will miss the game with an upper-body injury. Jaskin collided with teammate Robert Bortuzzo in the second period Monday night and left the ice.

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Coming off a huge win in Los Angeles on Monday, the Blues begin a tough back-to-back set in Anaheim tonight. In their last trip to Anaheim, the Blues clipped the Ducks 2-1 in overtime on the strength of two goals from Patrik Berglund. The victory snapped a 10-game losing streak at Honda Center. Six days ago, the Blues made it two in a row vs. the Ducks as Joel Edmundson buried the game-winner with just 20 seconds remaining in regulation. Overall, the Blues are 4-0-1 in their last five games against the Ducks. Tonight, they have a chance to equal their longest win streak of the season (six games) and to sweep the season series with the Ducks for the first time since 2000-01 (4-0-0).

What to Watch

Alexander Steen, who recorded a goal and an assist against the Kings on Monday, is sitting just one point shy of 400 for his Blues career. Steen's empty-netter on Monday gave him 161 goals as a Blue, tying Jorgen Pettersson for ninth in team history. On the defensive side, Alex Pietrangelo has shouldered the load since the trade of Kevin Shattenkirk. The Blues first-year captain has logged six assists and a plus-2 rating since the trade, while he ranks second overall in time on ice per game (27:22) in that span.

The Blues are riding a five-game win streak - the third longest active streak in the LeagueSt. Louis has allowed two or fewer even strength goals in 15 of 18 games under Mike Yeo, including one or less in nine of those gamesJake Allen ranks fourth overall in even-strength save percentage (.942) since Mike Yeo took over (min. 200 even strength shots faced)Vladimir Tarasenko has four goals and three assists over his last six games against the DucksThe Blues blocked 23 shots against the Kings on Monday, improving their record to 7-1-0 when blocking at least 20 in a game this season

This day in history:1970 Bobby Orr becomes 1st defenseman in NHL to record 100 points in a season scoring 1G and 2A in 5-5 tie with Red Wings1977 Bernie Federko has is first NHL fight fighting Paul Evans in defense of Brian Sutter1996 Brett Hull records his 25th career hat trick in 4-2 win over Sharks1981 Gretzky becomes 50 goal scorer for 2nd straight season in 3-3 tie with Flames1994 League screws Blues again as they award Craig Janney to Vancouver as compensation for Petr Nedved1997 Joe Mullen becomes 1st American to score 500 NHL goals2003 Chris Osgood becomes first Blues goaltender to get a shutout in his first start with St Louis defeating the Predators 1-0

I fully expect to miss puck drop, because NBCSN did one of their last minute additions to show this game. With the NBCSN Pittsburgh-Flyers game not starting until 7:30 which means a 7:40 puck drop, it won't be over by 10:10 for the Blues-Ducks puck drop. Hope I'm wrong, but sports networks have a bad habit of over optimistic scheduling in this particular regard.

If they keep up the scoring pace from 4 of the last 5, the Blues will be fine. This is one thing I am not sure the Blues can sustain given this roster - scoring 3+ per game. Even with that, they can win any game if the defense and Allen keep teams to 2 or less which they've done all but 3 times under Yeo.

Jaskin is out for at least a week. Not enamored at all with Yakupov continuing to get time over Sanford. We know Yakupov is a lost cause. He's had enough opportunities and rarely does anything. We have no idea what Sanford could provide.

They played a better overall game vs. Anaheim than they did vs. LA.Bouwmeester made an awful, awful play that led to the Ducks' first goal. Terrible play...and not surprisingly, the tv crew really didn't touch on it that much. They actually gave Bouwmeester praise on the play when Panger said, "Two of the most reliable defensemen in the NHL, Pietrangelo and Bouwmeester, against one of the better lines in the NHL..." Ugh. Bouwmeester isn't even one of the most reliable defensemen on this team. I hate the bias sometimes. I hate it so much. That's why I NEVER listen to the inbetween periods breakdown. It's not objective at all, and therefore worthless and actually harmful to those new to the game.

A don't care so much that we lost this game. But a loss tonight will piss me off. Can't lose on back to back nights late in the season when fighting for a playoff spot. Need to get a couple points tonight.

For a top pairing defenseman, how come no one mentions (other than Kerbs) Bouwmeester not having a goal in 56 games?

NBC is absolutely horrible about educating fans irt to what teams are actually doing. They actually "broke down" the Blues issues on the power play, solely using this game, as if the Blues as a team were truly struggling on the PP in more than just one game. Yeah, the Blues 3rd ranked PK and 29% PP is really struggling, NBC...

Forgot to talk about Yakupov's total lack of awareness at a couple points in the game last night.

1st one was the obvious short-handed goal against which went off his skate with him reaching for the puck. If he takes his man, instead of reaching, that play probably doesn't happen.

The other really bad awareness moment - Paajarvi and Barbashev are moving forward to get into the offensive zone. Yakupov is stationary facing his own net at center ice. It looked like Pietrangelo was trying to get the long-bomb pass to Paajarvi to get he and Barbashev into the zone with speed. Yakupov, being completely unaware of their positioning, intercepts the pass and stops the forward momentum of the entire team while he turns and starts skating forward before finally passing across to the now stationary Paajarvi. That's the kind of crap that kept getting him benched in Edmonton and it's clearly not going to change. Time to move on from this experiment.

Paajarvi, on the other hand, finally did something I hadn't seen from him with that pass to setup the Barbashev goal.

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